 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Empty Nester's Blues
|
|
|
Subject: Empty Nester's Blues From: Deda Date: 06 Aug 02 - 03:57 PM So, I have two kids of my own, daughter age 26 and son age 23, plus grandon age 4 by daughter, plus two step-sons, both in early 30s. Most people's kids, I think, grow up and move away, to another city, or maybe even another state, or in some cases even to a different time zone. MY kids, though, have to live at distances that are measured by oceans, continents, and hemispheres. My daughter and grandson have been living in Israel for about a year now, and my son has recently gone back to France after a few weeks visit home. Then last week my husband and I found out that his younger son has joined the Peace Corps and is now in Mauritania (northwest Africa, south of Morocco), in a place with no phones and no electricity, no way for us to reach him that we know of. (The other stepson lives in LA and calls pretty regularly.) These kids are all great people. I just wish that they didn't have to be so damn far away. They're absorbed in their own lives, which is just as it should be, and I work on keeping focused on my own life -- but I'd really like to hear from them. My siblings and I did the same thing to my parents, and I'm sorry now that I was so completely oblivious then about how much it means to a parent just to have their kids within easy touch. Any similar stories? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Amos Date: 06 Aug 02 - 04:59 PM Well, Barky is about to try the jumping off the edge of the nest routine when she goes to SFO for her first semester at the Conservatory; and we're already feeling the hollow echoing rattle of the empty nest; ten days from now she starts her adventure, but she's in some respects already out there stretching her wings. So maybe we'll spend more time on the phone, huh, Sis?? I concur about the oblivious-about-parents part -- I was so involved in my own adventures it never occurred to me I was slighting theirs! A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: SINSULL Date: 06 Aug 02 - 05:09 PM Mine is in Texas and can't seem to keep his call phone connected. He calls when he has one which is great. And I don't want him any closer though I love him dearly. Just wish I knew I could reach him if I had to. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: SINSULL Date: 06 Aug 02 - 05:09 PM call = cell. See where my mind is? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Deda Date: 06 Aug 02 - 07:02 PM Dear amos, more time on the phone is ALWAYS welcome. And of course, Barky will be fine. She'll probably find herself a room-mate in a hurry, if she wants one. Give her big hugs for me, and please PM me her new snail mail address. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: katlaughing Date: 06 Aug 02 - 11:38 PM Well mine are on the same continent at least, but I do wish they all lived closer. They are pretty good about phone calls, but I do miss being able to give and get hugs. I like having the house just to the two of us and I love that they are happy and independent souls able and willing to support themselves, etc. BUT it just seems it'd be better if they were closer! And, we've no one to blame but ourselves in raising them that way. I left my mom behind, took three of her grandkids with me and only saw her three times in ten years. She never did get to see her great-grandsons before she passed on. One doesn't like to say much to the kids so there's no feeling of laying on a guilt trip or just making them sad, too.:-) That's what I feel more than anything...is sadness at the passing of time so far apart. Thanks, Deda, kat |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: John O'L Date: 07 Aug 02 - 12:43 AM Maybe we were all guilty of dumping our parents as soon as we decided we were ready, but isn't that what growing up is about? Two questions: Would you really do it any differently if you had your time over, and would you really want your kids to trim their adventures in order to stay close? Glenn |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Amos Date: 07 Aug 02 - 09:46 AM Well, I woke up this morning, I did not feel my best. Well, I woke up this morning, did not feel at my best. My offspring all left me, just a big ole empty nest! I went down to the kitchen, not a dish was out of place
Went down the hall, there were no clothes on the floor! Over in the bedroom, that bed was made up tight!
Well I'm rattling around here like an old die in a cup
You can tell yo' sistah, you can tell yo' brother too.
Wish that ole Goddess were around here, she could put them blues in the Mudcat Songbook! A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Skipjack K8 Date: 07 Aug 02 - 09:57 AM Deda, I came towards the same problem from a different direction, in that when I flew the coop, I stayed vigorously in touch, and headed home at every opportunity. Now I have 9-14 year olds that will be gone in a flash, but our immediate problem is that we have a very close, but huge (and growing) extended family that couldn't keep in touch effectively. So we set up an internet family noticeboard (on Smartgroups.com), and it has proved a monstrous success, with over a hundred postings a month. Now we all know what all of us are doing, and my ageing parents are bang up to date with children, grandchildren, and greats. Every message is e-mail round the group, so it is instant, and effective. I really do think a private forum of that type would make you feel so much more in touch. PM me if you want any more details of how it works. Skipjack K8 |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Naemanson Date: 07 Aug 02 - 10:35 AM This thread has been a big help. My older daughter (21 years old) has not been very communicative and I thought it might be me. Maybe it is just that she is absorbed in her own life. My younger daughter is leaving at the end of the month to go off to college in Virginia. I looked at how things were likely to go and decided I didn't need to rattle around an empty house so I sold the damn thing. If things work out I will be taking a new job in April and moving to Italy for the rest of my career (5 years). Even if things don't work out the way I hope I expect to spend the rest of my career overseas. I should be cured of the Empty Nest Blues by then. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Jeanie Date: 07 Aug 02 - 10:53 AM Here's my favourite quote about parents and children, from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran. It helped me at a time when I never thought I could become a mother, and it helps me, too, now that I am: "And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; for even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable. " - jeanie |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Sorcha Date: 07 Aug 02 - 11:34 AM My problem is sort of the opposite. Son,24, finally moved out. Now we have 2 "boarders" only one of whom is employed........I'm thinking about waiting tables just to get out of here once in a while. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Deda Date: 07 Aug 02 - 11:41 AM Thanks to all for the feedback, I really appreciate it. (Amos, thanks for the great lyrics.) Maybe because my childhood home had extremely strong currents of alchoholism and denial and sort of suppressed emotional abuse, and also held very powerful, smart, beloved beings who were churning around in all this muck, we (the then-kids)all fled from there as though we'd been sprung from Alkatraz. I was very good about writing home frequently, but it wasn't unusual for me to go for more than a year without seeing my parents, and despite my letters they were actually quite clueless about what my day-to-day life was like, what I was doing all day, sometimes even where I was. That got better after I got married and especially after my daughter was born, when I was 26. If I had it to do over again, I really don't know what I'd do differently. I like to think I'd be closer to them, but it's very hard to be close to a heavy drinker, and in those days nobody knew anything about intervention. I would have tried harder, I guess. OTOH, I don't drink. I don't make the kind of money my folks had, by quite a long shot, but I really believe I've made an excellent trade in concentrating on my sanity and becoming a better human being. I'm divorced from my kids' Dad but we're on good terms. So I'm a little puzzled and a little pained that my kids feel the same need to put thousands of miles between themselves and their parents that my siblings and I felt. I think my kids are great people, admirable. I'm proud of them. I even think it's cool that they're having this great wide-world experience. I love the idea of living in Italy myself, that would sure take the sting out of it, but it isn't really possible -- can't afford it, I have a job here, and anyway my husband wouldn't do it. My kids are very slow about tech stuff. My son has to go to an internet cafe to check email, and he hasn't done that in the last week because he's been travelling around Brittany, playing gigs. They both (son & daughter) have email but they don't use it nearly as much as I do. I'm envious of close families, where parents and kids and siblings love contact and see each other at every opportunity, where family is consulted and included and treasured and wanted, where traditions like holidays together are kept and observed. It seems as though that actually happens in some families, I don't think it's completely mythical Hollywood hype. This is just some karmic thing I seem to have to work on. I've had to establish Thanksgiving traditions with friends, and I have, and we have great times (I have wonderful friends)but it still grates. Trying not to bellyache too much. Thanks to all. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: GUEST,JTT Date: 07 Aug 02 - 12:02 PM Deda, you need to hop on one of those cheap flights every now and again, and escape to Europe to see your kids. Your husband won't come? Ah well, pity he'll miss a nice trip ;) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: harpgirl Date: 07 Aug 02 - 12:04 PM My son is a couple years behind developmentally so he is still at home even though he has started community college. He threatens to marry and stay here, kicking me out! (Coffee cart at festivals, here I come) I imagine he'll fly in a couple years! God I'll miss him. I might have to get married again! Oh, no fellas...WATCH OUT! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Amos Date: 07 Aug 02 - 12:04 PM Jeanie, thanks for reminding me of that passage, also a favorite of mine! Deda: write lots of old-fashioned aerograms!! They're irresistible! Cost less than an ISP, last longer than an email -- no guarantees on response time, though. Good thing about email is the SASE is automatic! ("Ya know how to write a letter, doncha Steve? Ya just stick a pen in your hand and scribble!"--from that deathless classic film noir, Cyberblanca...) Bro
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: katlaughing Date: 08 Aug 02 - 07:04 PM Deda, my sister and I have talked about that, too. Her kids are more able and inclined to gather at holidays, but we both have puzzled over how we went from the kind of family that got together at every holiday,etc. the whole bit, to being scattered wide and hardly ever being together. It does feel somewhat karmic, but I think it is also the way society has evolved with families not having to stay together to keep the family farm going, easier modes of travel with which to move about, etc....just the way it is. In some ways I think it is better and others not. I remember a few times I felt it was really difficult to be involved in a holiday and I do NOT miss my other sisters calling me when I lived back East to tell me each Christmas would be mom's last that I'd better get out there, BUT all in all I loved the holidays when we were growing up and when bet's and my kids were little and it does make me sad that we just don't have that anymore. It really hurts, sometimes, that our grandsons are growing up with none of that with family. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: open mike Date: 08 Aug 02 - 09:41 PM I saw a quote (here in mud cat perhaps) the first half of your life is ruined by your parents, the last half by your children. Well, I am experiencing empty nest too- my youngest daughter will go to college in a few weeks/days, too, and the eldest has been out of the nest for 5 years or more. My nest is especially empty since both of my parents both died this spring, and i have been seperated from my children's father for over a year now..my extended family, neighbors and music friends are my kin now, nad the folks i camp with at music festivals are the people i celebrate with. Plus, having no brothers or sisters (of the biological type) i connect with cousins as if they were siblings... it is fulfilling to choose a time of year (holiday) to commemorate ache time it rolls around...thaksgiving is nice because there is not a emphasis on gift giving and big commercial thrust...just an attitude of being thankful for what is....then again, solstices and equinoxes offer 4 time a year to celebrate--my on-line friends and connections do fill a space for me to keep in contact exchange ideas and share--from another empty nest--Laurel i appreciate my mud cat family, my greg brown chat list family, my strawberry music festival, and my festival camp-mates the Dung Beetle Clan--life today has moved so far away from the Village of yester-year, but you can form your own village from the like-minded friends around you!! (form your own clan!!) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Deda Date: 08 Aug 02 - 10:12 PM Wow, Open mike, you've really gone through a lot of serious changes in a pretty condensed time! That kind of intense transition can be very stressful. It sounds like you're smart about dealing with it--Creating families of your choosing rather than those you got by chance. In 12 steps we called them family of choice and family of chance. After my mom died and my first marriage ended (both within 3 months), Thanksgiving and Christmas were extremely rough for me. Now I've remarried, and I've built up traditions with friends and my husband. Tough times go away, rough patches give way to smoother stretches, and whoever was talking about you eventually stops. People who left don't necessarily come back, but other people come along. (Like that pop song says, "Saying hello, saying I love you, saying Goodbye" -- that's about the sequence, over & over.) Kat, I agree that the rootlessness of our American life is a big piece of this. I don't have a strong geographic base of my own, except that my family has New England roots on both sides -- but not very currently. Halfbrother in Maine is heading west. I love my cousins in MA and RI, but I don't see them much. I've lived in Colorado for some 25 years now, because it's where my ex husband's family has been for several generations, and it's where my kids were born and grew up (although neither of them wants to live here now), and now there's the inertia factor -- hard to pull up stakes after so long, and it has such a great climate. I'm working on a scheme to get over to France for a visit in the fall. And I'm trying to encourage my daughter to come back to the states, at least for now, since she can't find any work in Israel anyway. Thanks to all for comparing notes. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: katlaughing Date: 09 Aug 02 - 05:52 AM Deda, I don't think I'd want to pull up stakes after 25 years, either! I do regret, somewhat, not having a homebase which stayed constant when my kids were growing up, but they don't regret it in the least. They've all three thanked me several times for the moves we made East and elsewhere. I didn't have a set homebase either except from 4th grade through high school, but Colorado was always just home, even when mom and dad didn't live here.:-) Well, there was grandma's until I was 13, and aunties and uncles for a few more years after that. Now that we are back in Colorado and only a couple of hours from bet, I hope she and I will be able to spend more time together. She has an empty nest as of now, too, after taking her son to San Diego. I do have a group of women friends whom I call my "Sisters By Choice." :-) I guess, too, I have to think about what I really expect of the trad. holidays; they don't really mean much to me, except giving thanks, as Laurel mentioned. Soltices, equinox, etc. are much more important to me, but I haven't made any concerted effort to find someone to celebrate with for the past several years. Sorry for the ramble, this has just brought up a lot of thoughts.:-) Thanks, kat |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Naemanson Date: 09 Aug 02 - 08:35 AM Deda, I don't think you can look at your kids' need to escape as being related to your need to leave your drinking parents. Just put it down to a kid's need to get away from the corral that has enclosed him or her for 18 to 20 years. Once they taste that freedom it is hard to gather them back, even though the love and happiness is there. I like to think that I offer my kids a safe place to retreat to when life knocks them down. They are always welcome home, at least wherever I call home at the time. They also have the ability to return to the family farm in Northern Maine. This safe retreat space gives them the confidence to try things. At least that is my theory. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 09 Aug 02 - 09:07 AM When I first saw this thread title I thought, "CELEBRATE, CELEBRATE, DANCE TO THE MUSIC!" But I really don't mean to make light of the situation. I'm truly blessed, and sometimes forget just how much. My sons live an hour away...just far enough that you don't hear all the day-to-day stuff...but close enough they can be home if they (or I) need help. My daughter lives here in town and has blessed me with the most beautiful granddaughter there ever was. I get to babysit for an hour at a time several times a week! Jeanie, that's a favorite quote of mine too. Also, "May you live to see your children's children." Amos, when my boys left for college it was pure relief. When my daughter left, I cried all the way home from her dorm room! When she left, she returned every Thursday (boyfriend at home). Starting on Wednesday, Hubby and I felt that everything would be OK, she would be home tomorrow. All she did was walk in the door, then leave, but all was right with the world again! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Barbara Shaw Date: 09 Aug 02 - 10:00 AM I'm having a very tough time right now with this very subject. I'm a New Englander and just lost another child to California. The older one moved out there a few years ago to pursue his dreams in the graphic arts, and is now married and just bought his first house there. He called this week to say they are expecting their first child.
My younger son moved to California 3 weeks ago to pursue his dreams in the music business.
I also have a brother, cousins, etc in CA. It's nice that THEY all have family to get together with, but I'm the one who stayed at "the old home place" and got left without much family. My elderly mother lives nearby and depends on us, and that's part of the reason we stay here - besides loving New England.
So, despite the joy of my older son's announcement about the baby, and despite the high hopes for my younger son's musical career, I'm wallowing in self-pity at the moment, thinking about the two sons, daughter-in-law and grandchild I'll see only rarely. I have a busy life and dreams and adventures of my own, but I always expected that it would include my children and grandchildren.
I'm steeped in bluegrass and old-time music that cherishes the traditional values of home and family, and I keep hearing those old songs. It seems like everyone around me has family that lives down the street, but I know that's not true. It must be the ones who don't who write songs like "The Fields Have Turned Brown" and "Family Reunion." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: MMario Date: 09 Aug 02 - 10:36 AM My father - all during the phase of raising 9 children to (presumed) independence kept saying - settle coast to coast - I'm going to spend my retirement visiting from kid to kid to kid. And he and Mom have - between Elder hostels, various other trips, etc. Sometime we joke that it's the children in our family that suffer from empty nest - because the folks are never home!!!!! We are lucky because (again due to the 9 kids and trying to schedule ANYTHING) the whole family is pretty much content to celebrate whatever whenever. A few years ago my folks decided that to be with any of their children for Christmas would be "imposing" - the result - they ended up having about a dozen "Christmas" celebrations - starting at Thanksgiving and continueing until mid february! (because each of us celebrated Christmas with them the closest to the date that we DID see them)
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Amos Date: 09 Aug 02 - 02:08 PM Barbara: I understand about your mother; thanks for making her life easier. Otherwise I'd invite you-all to come to California too!! San Diego can use people of your quality! A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Deda Date: 09 Aug 02 - 03:38 PM Here's a poem about empty nests: The Fledgling -- by Edna St. Vincent Millay So, art thou feathered, art thou flown, Thou naked thing? --and canst alone Upon the unsolid summer air Sustain thyself, and prosper there? Shall I no more with anxious note Advise thee through the happy day, Thrusting the worm into thy throat, Bearing thine excrement away? Alas, I think I see thee yet, Perched on the windy parapet, Defer thy flight a moment still To clean thy wing with careful bill. And thou are feathered, thou art flown; And hast a project of thine own. (Website for the poem.) http://members.aol.com/MillayGirl/winefromgrapes.htm#The%20Fledgling |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Barbara Shaw Date: 09 Aug 02 - 05:19 PM Thanks, Amos. I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing more of California than once every 10 years or so. I should also admit that I too moved to California as well as Colorado many years ago, but kept coming back to New England. Something about the rolling green hills and rocky Atlantic coast have a strong hold on me. And the pull of family and old friends. Most of the family is gone, but the pull of friends (including lots of new ones from all the music festivals we go to each summer) and the hills and the ocean are still strong. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Morticia Date: 09 Aug 02 - 07:04 PM I couldn't even open this thread for a while. My son left home last weekend...he isn't even quite 17.He went back to the village and the friends he had known when his father was alive.He went back to where he felt he was at home.I am so sad he couldn't settle here with me, I am so sad his life turned out this way,I am so sad that I only had him back again for such a short time,BUT...he is now living life the way he wants to, we now have a relationship where he can come back and know he is welcome and when he was leaving he said "I know I can come home anytime I want to". It was the first time I had heard him call my house home.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Deda Date: 09 Aug 02 - 09:15 PM I just got a postcard from my son in France. He really is feathered and flown, as the poem says -- and he's never actually lived with me since he was 8, except for some weekends and summer vacations, maybe two to (max) three weeks at a stretch, which were always very precious to me. Still, he identifies with my side of the family, takes after (and adores) Amos, and others of our clan. He doesn't think of my house as home -- he's always lived at my ex's house, which we bought together when he was an infant. So I could beat myself up about having failed him as a parent & a mom, if I were depressed. I wonder if women need to talk about this more than men do. My ex has really been hit very hard by having both kids plus grandson so far away, but I don't think he'd ever "chat" about it. Divorces and household moves and jet airplanes sure have changed the dynamics of families. It's not an easy transition. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: katlaughing Date: 09 Aug 02 - 10:20 PM On the other hand, think of our ancestors who lit out for the West and never heard from nor saw their families ever again. My great-grandfather left home at 13, from MI to OK, then CO. Never went home, never saw any of his siblings or parents. So many times, it is awe-inspiring to me to think of how these people did such things. Coming across the pond, too. So..if we can make those jet airplanes work for us...and, get our children more e-connected...:-) Mortee, I am sorry to hear that about your son. After all you've all been through, that has to be so difficult. My son left at 17, too and he's turned out okay, though there were times we weren't sure he would. Here's a big hug for you and for all of the rest of us in this thread... {{{{{{{{{{{{EMPTY-NEST-FILLER-HUG}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} kat |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: open mike Date: 09 Aug 02 - 11:19 PM thaks for the cyber-hug and thanks for all of you being in my flock now--glad we can all get together here-glad we have a mud cat to help us connect-it helps to know y'all are out there--feels like family to me!! I am not sure why the heading of my message has "neighbors" on it--perhaps a web page i visited when searching for music--but thanks for all being my cyber neighbors!! Keep your eyes on the skies-as the meteor showers are happening right now--and they will get more intense until sunday aug. 11 and monday aug 12..make a wish when you see a shooting star! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: pattyClink Date: 09 Aug 02 - 11:37 PM Skipjack, thanks for testifying about Smartgroups. I started setting one up today. Apparently you can keep it restricted so you're not spilling family secrets and photos all over the web, which is what we were looking for. I have siblings who are empty-nesters, and I think it would help them, me, the scattered kids and maybe some others who are getting too far adrift from connections. Wonder if it's really free or is there some catch (they will be asking me as I try to get everybody involved)? Seems like even if there were, it would be well worth a small investment. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Empty Nester's Blues From: Amergin Date: 10 Aug 02 - 09:45 PM well i left home back in 97.....and then after a couple of years I got sick...and went back...been there ever since...the joke is that i won't leave again until I find a girl sorry enough to marry me...or take me to her place for good...the sad part of it is it is probably true...as I do not trust myself living alone... |